Breadcrumbs

TIR 10-6: Uniform Oil Spill Response and Prevention Fee Increase

I. Background

Chapter 251 of the Acts of 2004, An Act Relative to Oil Spill Prevention and Response in Buzzards Bay and Other Harbors and Bays of the Commonwealth ("the Act"), signed on August 4, 2004, amended the General Laws by adding chapter 21M. The Act established the Oil Spill Prevention and Response Trust Fund ("the fund"). The fund is financed from various sources including a fee on each barrel of petroleum product or crude oil received at a marine terminal within the Commonwealth by means of a vessel from a point of origin outside the Commonwealth. The Act directed the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection ("DEP") to set the fee at not less than $0.02 for each barrel of petroleum product or crude oil, unless the Commissioner of the DEP determined that a lesser amount would cause the fund to reach $10 million within six (6) months. After consultation with the Commissioner of the Department of Revenue ("DOR"), the Commissioner of the DEP determined that a lesser fee would not cause the fund to reach the $10 million limit within 6 months. Accordingly, the fee was established at $0.02 per barrel effective September 1, 2004. Each marine terminal operator remits the fee to the DOR on a monthly basis. See, generally, TIR 04-20, which is modified and superseded by this TIR to the extent it is inconsistent.

II. Statutory Change

Chapter 268 of the Acts of 2008, An Act Further Protecting Buzzards Bay, and Chapter 101 of the Acts of 2009, An Act Preventing Oil Spills in Buzzards Bay, amended G.L. chapter 21M. In particular, Section 7 of Chapter 268 of the Acts of 2008 amended G.L. chapter 21M, section 8(c)(1) to allow the Commissioner of the DEP to establish the uniform oil spill response and prevention fee in an amount not exceeding $0.05 for each barrel of petroleum product.

III. Fee Increase

On February 23, 2010, the Commissioner of the DEP notified the Commissioner of the DOR that DEP had determined that an increased fee per barrel is necessary to implement the expanded requirements of G.L. chapter 21M, as amended. The Commissioner of the DEP set the fee at $0.05 per barrel of petroleum product received at a marine terminal within the Commonwealth, effective April 1, 2010.

Each marine terminal operator registered under G.L. chapter 21M must collect the increased fee from the owner of the petroleum product or crude oil upon the receipt of the petroleum product or crude oil at the marine terminal. The marine terminal operator must remit the fee to the DOR by the 30 th of each month based upon the numbers of barrels of petroleum product or crude oil received during the preceding month. For receipts in the month of January, the returns are due by February 28 th or by February 29 th in a leap year.

Tool Name: Baynote, Inc. Recommendations

The information below summarizes privacy policy terms related to content recommendations on Mass.Gov and is excerpted from the full Mass.gov privacy policy.

Purpose: Displays relevant content recommendation based on the site usage pattern of all users of Mass.Gov. If Personalization is enabled (the default setting), your personal site usage pattern today and on prior visits to Mass.gov will be displayed to you and will also be a factor in determining personalized relevant recommendations for you.

Data Collected: A random anonymous unique identifier is assigned and tracked for each user of the website. This identifier is sent to our vendor, Baynote, when you view a page, open a document or click a link on Mass.Gov. Our vendor then analyzes the specific content that was viewed and provides content recommendations to similar content that you may find useful. A full description of what data Baynote collects and how it uses this data is available at http://www.baynote.com/baynote-services-privacy-policy/. Please note that the tool uses persistent cookies. These cookies will be Mass.gov domain cookies and not Baynote domain cookies. The cookies will store information related to a user’s Mass.gov Web site usage, including the URL and title of sites recently visited and the random anonymous unique identifier assigned to the user. In general, and as described in more detail in Baynote’s service privacy policy linked to above, Baynote only uses the personalized information it gathers to provide recommendation services and display past usage for Mass.Gov users and will not share this information with any third parties, including advertisers. The information collected will not affect content you may see on sites unaffiliated with Mass.Gov.

Express Opt Out: If personalization of recommendations based on the content you view is not desired, or you do not wish to display a list of recently viewed Mass.gov pages, you may turn personalization off. You can do this by using either the switch located below in this privacy policy or an identical switch located directly above the content recommendations and recently viewed content boxes displayed on the Mass.gov site. Once you turn off personalization, your content recommendations will be based on the overall traffic patterns of all users of Mass.Gov and they will not specifically take into account your own personal usage patterns. If you turn off personalization, information collected by this Tool that is associated with your content usage will be deleted from your cookies, and no further information about your content usage will be sent to our vendor.

Disabling personalization will affect both content recommendations and recently viewed page links. If you turn off personalization, this “off” setting will persist as you browse Mass.Gov and during any future sessions. The opt-out setting is stored in a persistent cookie on your computer. The setting will remain in effect so long as you use the same computer with the same Internet browser. If you delete the cookie that contains the opt-out setting or use a different browser or computer, personalization will be enabled and you will need to disable it again on your next visit, if desired.

For our full privacy policy, please close this window and see the Site Policies or Privacy Policy link in the footer of the page.